It is not only the overstressed middle-class executive, however, who suffers the volcanic effect of such negative channeling. Rage, in poor, overcrowded, crime-ridden areas of the cities, is gangrenous, and even the law-abiding are afflicted by it.
Joe Andujar, a New York cop who patrols a blighted neighborhood in Harlem, knows all about that. He frequently has to be as wary of
”complainants” as he is of ”the bad guys” about whom they complain.
Not long ago, Andujar and his partner were called to a storefront grocery that had just been burglarized. As they talked to the proprietor, they saw a man emerge from an adjacent building. He was carrying a bag the grocer identified as one of his own. Andujar ordered the man to stop, and he ran; but before the police could move, the grocer exploded. Crime was no stranger in his neighborhood. He had been robbed once too often and was not inclined to trust the lastest episode to the tender mercies of the police.
”The complainant says, `He`s mine!` ” Andujar recalls. ”He pushes me aside and starts running after the guy. He chases him and chases him and chases him, with me right behind him. We catch him, and I swear, it took myself and two other police officers to tear the complainant away from the bad guy. It was kind of funny. The whole time, the bad guy was saying, `Please, officers, help me, help me! Get this crazy guy off me!` He`s just committed a burglary and now he`s calling the cops!”
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF
Gaylin blames much of the increasing urban aggression upon a loss of
”the sense of community” in cities in which greed, ego and ambition, linked with the chronic hopelessness of an impoverished minority underclass, have led to elevation of the individual and his rights far above any sense of the common good.
”I think there`s an overriding sense of individualism now,” he says.
”All of the collective things that used to hold us together are deteriorating. The family is deteriorating. Religion, which once was a central binding force, doesn`t seem to serve that purpose anymore. The city is large and impersonal, and there`s no sense of neighborhood anymore. I think the sociologists and the city planners have neglected the terrible, terrible importance of community in our pursuit of individual liberties, forgetting that individual liberties cannot thrive in a state of political chaos.”
Then, too, former outlets for the expression of righteous indignation-the anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s and 1970s and the picket lines of labor unrest-are muted now. Stearns says the nation was healthier when they were not.
”One of the interesting correlations in all of this has been the extent to which normal protest outlets, such as rates of strikes and unionization, have actually declined,” he says. ”The union movements have shrunk. Rates of strikes have gone down. The kind of protest that allowed one to express moral indignation about things that were impacting on one`s daily life are increasingly remote from many people. That`s one of the reasons that people who seem to be just ordinary people, without special provocation, ever so often just burst out.”
SOCIAL SUBSTITUTES
Like Gaylin and Stearns, Robert Trojanowicz, director of the school of criminal justice at Michigan State University, believes the stampede of unbridled rage can be traced to the crumbling influence of family, church, schools and social services, but he offers hope that if they cannot be resurrected in our chaotic society, substitutes for them can be found.
”Our system is so clogged today in the prisons and the jails that there are few sanctions against violent behavior in general,” Trojanowicz says.
”People see that you can perpetrate deviant behavior with minimal penalty. That`s the overriding, corrupting force. Add to that, especially in the cities, the combination of all the factors that create stress and correlate that with increased alcohol and drug use, which reduces inhibitions, and a person can erupt.
”What we can do as individuals, coworkers, neighbors or people who ride the bus with these people, is help. When we see signs of agitation and irritability or behavior changes that seem to be fairly abrupt, we can notify a person`s (work) supervisor, or, if we know the person well enough, we can approach him as a concerned friend. We may just want to spend a few extra minutes listening to him. A lot of these violent people will tell you, `I`ve had this rage in me for several weeks and I just couldn`t get anybody to listen.` We don`t even suggest to people that they get alcohol counseling or mental health help. Well, don`t just suggest it. Volunteer to take them there.”
A FINE LINE
Trojanowicz, who also lectures at Harvard, specializes in the psychology of violent, hardened criminals, but he says there is a ”fine line” between one of them and the ordinary citizen who, in a moment of rage, kicks a wastebasket across the office. He contends that violence, at any level, must be controlled, and that if control is slipping, it is because the first step toward establishing it is no longer being taken in the classroom.
”In the schools, with young kids, violence seems to be increasingly a preferred method of handling problems,” he says. ”That starts on the playground. If kids know they can bully and take things away from other kids, these are the kind of kids who grow up to be adult bullies. We can start in the classroom by showing appropriate ways of settling problems, of mediating and compromising, of getting along. We don`t do much of that in the schools nowadays.
”In the workplace, there are also some tangential things that can be done,” Trojanowicz says. ”One of them is releasing workers so they can become involved in exercise programs, either on- or off-duty. Exercise is a great reliever of stress and anxiety. What`s also helpful are work
environments where they have regular social events where people get together for birthdays or special events or award programs. We need a work environment that is flexible.”
Trojanowicz says we also need to learn to laugh again.
”Laughter is a great method of reducing stress and tension,” he says.
”Humor is a very important part of our lives. Sometimes we get so serious, because of the complexity of our world, that we don`t see humorous movies or go around with friends who make us laugh. Laughing or jogging or the primal scream (a noisy self-therapy technique popular two decades ago) are all the same thing: an expression of energy. It`s taking that pressure cooker and turning the nob enough so that enough steam comes off to let us get back to normal life.”
MEAN STREETS
Meanwhile, urban rage goes on:
The man is tall, middle-aged and tastefully groomed in a well-tailored three-piece suit and a gray cashmere overcoat. He carries an expensive attache case that, at the moment, he is using to beat the hood of a taxicab much as a Neanderthal might have employed a club in an argument with a saber-toothed cat. His eyes are glazed, his teeth bared in a rictus of fury.
The cabbie, who has violated the crosswalk at a red light to nudge the man with his front bumper, comes boiling out from under the wheel; but, confronted by an apparent homicidal maniac, he hangs back. Suddenly, the attacker becomes aware of what he is doing, and of hundreds of eyes watching him do it. Crestfallen, he plunges into the anonymity of the crowd, pursued by a swarm of impotent obscenities from the cabbie.
Rage, in spontaneous combustion, has struck again in teeming Manhattan, at 2 o`clock on a sunny afternoon at the corner of 50th and Madison, where Western civilization struts its alleged best. The crowd stops gawking and moves on. They`ve seen it all before. One more display draws only fleeting interest, but the cab driver`s next fare is likely to pay for it.
If Stearns, Gaylin and Trojanowicz are right, we all will in time to come. –
